Cloud Computing for the Contact Centre:
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Just as Google allows you to access search, advertising and other applications at the click of a mouse from their massive data centres around the world, so NewVoiceMedia allows our clients to access Telephony services. For the first time in history, End Users or Service Providers can now set-up and operate a contact centre without any hardware, software or capital expenditure. We use similar (if smaller!) data centres as Google - but these hubs are also connected directly into the public telephone network as well as the Internet.
NewVoiceMedia is a pioneer in Cloud Computing for Telephony applications - we introduced our 4th Generation system for Hosted Contact Centres in July 2008, we have clients of all shapes and sizes, and our revenues continue to grow exponentially.
Traditionally, applications such as word processing required the end user to buy a software license from a vendor and install it on their PC. That license was relatively expensive, was locked to that one PC, and probably was more powerful than really needed.
The Cloud Computing model offers customers a radical new way of working. No purchases are required. It allows registered users to access technology-enabled services over the Internet ("the cloud") without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them. Very often, these applications are scalable to a user's specific needs and are paid for using a low cost, pay-as-you-use subscription model.
Companies such as salesforce.com, Amazon have already captured huge market share from their traditional rivals because of their breakthrough business models, as well as the power of their solutions. Google Apps is attracting significant interest because it offers the core functionality for the average Microsoft Office user at a fraction of the cost.
The Credit Crunch has made Cloud Computing far more mainstream and while we originally thought the sea change would be in 2007, it now looks like 2009 being the tipping point for the 'new utilitarians'!!
Cloud Computing and NewVoiceMedia Telephony
Cloud Computing is revolutionising the ways that companies do business. Just as Google revolutionised the world of advertising and Amazon the world of retail, so NewVoiceMedia is set to change the way Contact Centres are set-up and operated. It's a model that will drastically improve contact centre performance while slashing operating costs and eliminating CapEx altogether.
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How does it work?
Unlike a traditional CPE approach, which costs a fortune in hardware and software, our solution routes calls to 'your' contact centre to our hosting servers. There, the calls are processed according to your call plans and then delivered to your agents wherever in the world they may be. At the same time we pop your agents screen with all the information we hold on your caller. All your agent needs is a (preferably) PSTN phone and a PC - nothing else is required, then 'off you go'!
- No hardware, to buy and maintain...and no CapEx
- No software to integrate
- No fuss...you can go-live in a matter of days usually!
The following three sections show how the basic modules of our system can be combined to provide solutions that range from a simple call centre to the most sophisticated of applications that place the contact centre at the heart of an end-to-end business process. Just hover over a button to see additional texts, or click to drill down for additional information...
Business Applications
There are many vendors of call centre hardware and software, but none enable you to assemble an advanced contact centre as quickly, or as easily, as NewVoiceMedia.
You can enhance agent productivity and reduce headcount while still boosting the overall performance of your operation. You can boost revenues by intelligent call routing and targeted in-queue advertising. You will improve the caller experience. But best of all, is how easily and quickly everything can be put together...and you only pay for what you use at the end of each month!
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Contact Centre Applications
Using our pre-integrated modules for ACD, CTI, Call Recording... your team can create a contact centre operation that exactly meets your requirements for today, and then re-order things to change the whole nature of the operation the very next day. There's no need to call in an army of system integrators and wait months to do things.
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ContactWorld Platform
The 4th generation of our Cloud Computing for Telephony platform, ContactWorld provides top-of-the-market capability for an affordable monthly outlay. No hardware OR software required, it is based on a solid telephony foundation that has been developed from the ground up for CTI and other advanced applications.
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Comparison between Traditional and 'Cloud-based' Solutions
Traditional Contact Centre | Hosted Contact Centre |
- Customer Premise Equipment
- CapEx intensive, many hidden costs (maintenance, upgrades, facilities management, support staff...)
| - No hardware needed
- Pay-as-you-go Opex model
- No hidden costs: you are outsourcing the management of the telephony technology to us
|
- Fixed location, difficult to move office
| - Agents can be anywhere in world and can change call plan location in seconds
|
- Invariably multi-vendor solution develops over the years making for increasingly complex support
- Inherently obsoleting technology making adoption of new technology more difficult
| - Single vendor solution, always state-of-the-art
|
- Difficult to downsize, expensive to scale up
| - Scalable up and down in minutes in terms of both agents and functionality
- Balances business needs and costs
- Less risk - no need to over-order components months in advance 'in case business picks up'
|
- Needs an army of support staff
| - Fewer staff needed
- Your people can make changes to the call plan themselves after a couple of days training (ACD, CTI, IVR...everything)
- Changes made over the web from any browser
|
- Normally slow to change call plans
| - Changes can be made in almost real-time
|
- Requires disaster recovery plan
| - Inherently DR ready - you could switch agents to another location in minutes
- Our platform has multiple nodes to maintain resilience
|
- Meets the your needs at the time of purchase
| - Multi-tenant solution means economies of scale: you are probably accessing a far more powerful platform than you would purchase otherwise.
|
Instead of investing £000s in hardware and waiting months for an army of system integrators to get everything to work, our clients can use our 'Call Centre in the Clouds' to set up a call centre in days. There's no capital expenditure, no hidden costs for maintenance, air conditioning, security, system integrator salaries... and with our pre-integrated modules for ACD, CTI, call recording and so on, even non-technical can configure and modify their own call plans after a couple of days training.
Our proprietary solutions are every bit as powerful as leading solutions from traditional vendors - we provide high performance ACD, IVR, CTI, call recording, PCI-DSS compliant payment lines and more. What's more, we provide Telco-quality PSTN lines as well as VoIP.
Indeed, it's more than likely that our platform is more powerful than many alternatives out there because each node in our platform is capable of handling over 5,000 simultaneous calls. Our solutions are more scalable because you don't need to buy additional hardware or extra licenses.
Based on a powerful platform...designed by NewVoiceMedia
Naturally, the functionality that makes us so different requires massive processing power. Most users are rightly unaware that platform has more compute power per caller channel than was available for the whole of a major US telephony network only six years ago! And because the costs are shared with other users of our multi-tenant platform, it comes practically for free. Our massive processing power enables us to offer our clients the inbound call treatment capabilities they could only dream of, until now.
For those with a technical interest, our platform is based on Stratus fault-tolerant server architecture that delivers greater than 99.999% uptime; it uses Aculab signal processors (3 DSP chips per caller channel to remove echoes, reduce background noise and for CTI control any time during the call); and we developed our own softswitches for carrier-grade signalling. Our multi-tenant infrastructure is based inside our telco partners' premises and is supported day and night, 365 days a year. We run multiple nodes from multiple locations, so that should one node actually go down there is enough capacity within the other nodes to switch over and carry on seamlessly. These hubs are, in turn, connected to major internet networks that can handle up to 1Petabit (a million gigabits) of traffic per second. We believe we are the only hosted company to be so tightly integrated into Tier 1 networks. We conform to XML, CCXML and VoiceXML standards, extended to provide more tailored instruction sets for Dynamic CTI.
The platform hardware aside, NewVoiceMedia owns all the Intellectual Property of its solution and has many patents pending for its implementation. It also means that we can rapidly adapt the platform to meet new applications and challenges.
Absolute security
Following the recent spate of well publicised security breaches arising from organisations running traditional application models, companies are beginning to recognise that storing critical data in remote hosting facilities may even prove beneficial - rather than adding to risk, adopting this model is a way of making information more secure.
NewVoiceMedia has achieved PCI-DSS Level 1 compliance, meaning that credit card companies such as Visa and Mastercard trust our security processes as we take £000s in card transactions every day. Physically, our Cloud Computing centres are based inside the data centres of Tier 1 telcos: physical access is restricted to those who 'need to go', the platforms are inside a steel cage, and CCTV records every movement inside the area. Regular penetration tests are run by external specialists to ensure that our firewall and security procedures are beyond reproach. Of course, audit trails let us know who did what and when on our platform. Is it possible that our security is even more rigorous than companies still using their own Customer Premise Equipment?
Cloud Computing is the Future
It is not long since the first Dot com boom where a common question was how on earth is anyone going to make money out of the internet? Many organisations have figured this out and corporations globally are far more efficient than they have ever been, ripping vast layers of costs from their enterprise using the web.
Myths abound that only start up companies and SMEs are using cloud computing to benefit their businesses. A quick look at our own website will show that large multi-national blue chip organisations are right there in understanding what companies like NewVoiceMedia can do to help them compete.
Market estimates show that the time for Cloud Computing has arrived and quoted growth rates of 25% are (in our experience) very conservative. Now we invite you to take a look around our site, read the customer testimonials, download a case history or two, and see who has adopted our solutions already.